"Who is Ashamed" by Scott Klaft
Who Is Ashamed? By'' Scott Klaft'' When teaching new prospects about the manner in which one becomes a Christian, having covered the necessity of belief that drives everything that follows , it is not entirely inappropriate to direct them to Matthew 10:32, 33 to explain the necessity of making the verbal confession of faith. (It is probably more appropriate to discuss it in view of Romans 10:9, 10 as it is illustrated by Acts 8:36 – 38.) On the surface, the Matthew passage will do the job well enough, even though that is not exactly the intended point Jesus is making there. “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32, 33). The point He is making is not so much the necessity of a verbal confession as much as He is rendering judgment on the two types of reactions to the gospel. Contextually, the Lord was describing the harsh reality that people don’t always react well. But there is an implication to the disciples doing the preaching as well. Jesus is requiring a certain depth of character from His disciples that would underlie a daily and regular demonstration of fidelity to Him. They must not allow the harshness of reactions to sway them. Whatever men might do to them, they should not be ashamed of their message, nor be intimidated into silence. This is a repeated admonition in Jesus’ teaching. Those carrying a futurist view regarding the coming of the Lord may not realize what they are doing to passages when forcing them to fit their model of that event. They have to avoid the plain and natural meaning of passages in context in order to lift them out and force them to mean something completely unnatural. Why not just teach them in their contexts? Is it that they are ashamed of how it presents certain conflicts with their view that they cannot explain? Take, for example, Matthew 16:24 – 28 in which Jesus was teaching His requirement of complete devotion to Him in spite of hardships (bearing a cross v. 24). There, He indicates the consequences of being unwilling to give up everything, even one’s own bodily life in order to have life in Him (v. 25). He explains that no amount of gain in the physical world could possibly be worth the value of one’s own soul (v. 26). Implying that justice and judgment occurs from a spiritual (not material) view, Jesus further explains: “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matt. 16:27, 28). Someone taking the view that Jesus’ coming with His angels in judgment is to be yet in the future has trouble with these two verses being together. Jesus’ explicit words place that judgment within the lifespan of some of those people who stood there that day. They would personally see it come to pass in their lifetime. But normally, what we hear people say is that v. 27 is referring to a future judgment of all the creation, while v. 28 is only talking about the birth of the church in Acts 2. This is incorrect for both verses, extracting them from their own immediate context. Yes, the parallel passage in Mark has the two verses separated by a chapter heading. But before even looking at the passage, let’s remember that the chapter and verse breaks in our modern English Bibles were not placed there by inspired men. Jewish Masoretes in the 9th Century are credited for first having separated the Hebrew Scriptures into verse form; and, it wasn’t until at least the 13th Century that certain men have been credited to have made the chapter divisions. Even still, it was not until 1557 – 1560 that the Geneva Bible (first the New Testament and then the whole Bible) was the first English version printed with both chapter and verse divisions. This is not the form in which the scriptures were originally given. They were given without separation so that we should naturally look to the immediate contexts for our initial understanding of any passage. The way the parallel passage in Mark was supposed to be read looks like this: “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 8:38 – 9:1). Where Matthew did not mention a time frame for Jesus coming with His angels in the judgment, Mark’s account of Jesus’ speech places it within the time frame of “this adulterous and sinful generation,” the same generation of those who stood there that day, to whom Jesus promised they would see the kingdom come. But what of those who find themselves ashamed of Jesus’ words in this connection? Are not these passages Jesus’ words? Why would anyone handle these as if one verse were disconnected from the other? Are they ashamed of the implications? Consider also Luke’s account of the very same speech: “For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:26, 27). It is easy to ask the question: If, as in Matthew and Luke, the verses belong together, why should they be seen as necessarily separate ideas in Mark? There is nothing in the language of any of the three that would lead us to believe that Jesus has suddenly shifted his thoughts from one thing to the next in mid-stream. There is nothing in the context that justifies viewing the two verses separately in time. By what hermeneutical rule do those believing in a future coming of Jesus in judgment separate that idea from the coming of the kingdom? They are clearly linked by these three accounts of Jesus’ speech. Denominations usually buy into the Premillennial view that neither the kingdom nor the Lord has yet come. This is clearly an error. The church and the kingdom are obvious synonyms (cf. Matthew 16:18,19; Colossians 1:13; Hebrews 12:28; Revelation 1:9). The popular notion in the churches of Christ, presently, is the Amillennial view that says the kingdom came, which is the church. And that is correct, but it cannot have been Acts 2 that Jesus had in contemplation in our main texts. The kingdom would come with power in their generation, which was directly linked to Jesus coming again in judgment with His angels, and in the glory of the Father. The popular notion says that Jesus has not yet come to bring judgment, and thus they have implied a contradiction of their view with what Jesus said. While it is true, the church had it’s beginning in Acts 2, that is only when the construction of that house began (cf. Ephesians 2:19 – 22), but its completion was not yet. There is not enough space to explore that idea here, but just from our main texts, we can see that by Acts 2 (and not for many years afterward), Jesus had not yet brought that judgment by which He would “reward every man according to his works” (Matt. 16:27). The coming of Jesus in judgment and the coming of the kingdom (as a completed and finished entity) are clearly and inseparably linked and simultaneous events. Jesus used similar language to describe His coming in Matthew 24:30, 31, which is greatly accepted as a part of Jesus’ answer to the question about the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Luke 21:20 – 28), which was fulfilled in A.D. 70. Of necessity, I must then recognize that Paul uses the same language to describe Jesus’ coming in 1st Thessalonians 4:13 – 5:4 looking forward to the same fulfillment. There is only one approach to eschatology (the study of final things) that can unashamedly assert what Jesus asserts in those three parallel-texts as well as the others cited. That is the same approach the authors of this publication take in our attempts to teach only God’s truth in the way He intended it. There is no shame in holding a wrong position out of ignorance once the necessary corrections are made. But when the truth of Jesus’ words are properly presented, and it is repeatedly resisted, I fear for those souls, considering what Jesus says about those who are too ashamed of His words to hold to them.